Scampering across the mist rigs got boring day after day, but it never got less stressful. Harvesting water was a dangerous business.

  Blake hauled himself along an upright sheet of chain-link mesh, scraping up droplets of water. As mist billowed across the mesh of the rigs, it condensed into harvestable water. He moved as quickly as he could, inserting his feet into gaps in the sheet and gripping the mesh with his one free hand. When he reached the top of the hundred-foot-tall sheet, he swung his leg over and climbed back down the other side, scooping droplets as he went.

  A gale blew past, and the sheet shuddered. Summer wind poured through the holes, tugging on his soaked tunic. He pulled himself tight to the mesh and rammed his feet in, clinging on as tight as he could, trembling and refusing to let go.

  If the winds picked up and Blake wasn’t holding on tight enough, they’d blow him into the merge-mists—a wall of billowing fog looming behind him, separating a slice of the old Earth from the one of the many worlds it had merged with. But if his grip just failed him, he’d fall a hundred feet and end up in the ruined outskirts of an old Earth-city once called Toronto.

  He’d been only ten years old when the world ended and the Integration began. Ten years later, it didn’t make much more sense.

  So he didn’t try to make sense of it. After a while, he stopped asking questions. World merges, mana cultivators from distant worlds? He accepted it. He kept living. There was nothing else he could do.

  And when the wind stopped blowing, he kept climbing. There were hundreds of sheets of mesh stretched all across the merge border, an unintentional fence separating an isolated swath of Earth from the new wilds. He had to scrape at least two more sheets clean before the sun set.

  The scampermen could produce a bucket of water a day if they worked hard enough. It wasn’t that there was no water anymore, but clean water was hard to come by. People would pay their hard-earned Dynasty hacksilver for Blake’s services.

  His heart pounded from exertion. Sweat made his fingers slippery, and every movement threatened to be his last. But where other scampermen would climb down and take breaks, he persevered—even against his better judgement.

  He climbed down to the very bottom of the net, then swung around the bottom and climbed back up the other side. If there were any streaks of water he missed, he scooped them up, no matter how insignificant. Missing a single droplet would be a massive waste.

  Before the Integration, he’d always been meticulous—to the point that he’d been labelled a “problem child.” Turning in homework a day late because it couldn’t have errors in it (even if it had just been fourth-grade math), lining up every shot perfectly in gym class. It made him a terrible team player, but when his parents had put him in an after-school pole vaulting and gymnastics club, he’d excelled.

  But it’d been years since then. There was no more pole vaulting now, no more homework, only survival.

  As the sun crawled closer to the horizon and dipped behind the ruins of the city’s distant crumbling skyscrapers, Blake leapt across the gap between his current sheet of mesh and the next sheet over. He clutched a supporting post with his free hand and kept working.

  His bucket was almost full. He switched hands often, distributing the pressure and strain. His veins bulged and his fingers ached, but he kept scampering and scraping.

  When the sky turned purple and the sun disappeared, Blake had a full bucket. For just a moment, he hauled himself up to the top of a mist-rig and stared back at the city.

  A wedge of dark steel hovered above the old skyscrapers—a manaship.

  During the Integration, ships had descended from the sky, carrying mana cultivators aboard. Maybe they’d caused the Integration. Maybe they’d just come to clean up the mess afterward. Blake didn’t know.

  The ship reminded him of a key hanging over the city, point down. There were no massive engines, only a hull made of dark steel and rigid shapes. A dragon’s head of moulded steel protruded from the front, and angular channels for conducting glowing turquoise mana ran across its surface.

  There were hundreds of manaships all around the Earth now, floating above all the major cities.

  “I…accept it,” Blake whispered. “I accept it.” If he closed his eyes and tried to pretend none of it had happened, he’d go hungry. There was no choice but to accept it.

  He hauled himself to the edge of the mist rig he was currently working on and deftly grabbed the pole that supported it. It wasn’t wise to stay close to the merge border too late at night. All sorts of otherworldly monsters and demonic fiends crossed over the merge, hungry for flesh. Best not to indulge them.

  He slid down the pole, careful not to let any of the water in the bucket slosh out. If he lost it, a day’s pay was gone. He would go hungry for the night, and he might not make rent for the month—they’d throw him out of the Blended housing district and into the wilds.

  He landed in a patch of knee-high ferns and weeds with a heavy thud, but he braced his arm to keep the bucket from spilling.

  And came face to face with a mana cultivator.

  They were unmistakable. Angular armour with vibrant splashes of colour. Fur cloaks, cloth sashes. Weathered faces from decades of tribulations and glory-seeking combat. And they all had glowing turquoise eyes from years of mana accumulation, marking them as offworlders.

  They were the only ones crazy enough to venture into the merge-mists.

  “I am thirsty, scamperman,” the cultivator stated. He spoke with a vaguely Scandinavian accent, and his fox-orange beard swayed with every word he uttered. “Allow me to drink before I enter the mists.” It wasn’t a request.

  Blake was an average height, and only slightly more muscular than most other men his age. But the cultivator stood at least a head taller, and his shoulders seemed twice as wide. He leaned forward, presenting his rank seal.

  A wax seal clung to his cuirass—right over his heart. Over the past decade, Blake had learned what the patterns imprinted on cultivators’ seals meant. Three stars arranged in a crescent shape? This man was at the third stage of Body Tempering.

  He could crush Blake’s bones with a flick of his finger.

  “This one humbly begs you,” Blake said, dipping his head, “to not drink all of it.” Still, he held out his bucket with a wince. “Couldn’t—” He cut himself off. Those words stayed inside. Couldn’t you have picked someone else?

  By now, other scampermen were descending from the mist rigs with their buckets. Some glanced cautiously at Blake, but they said nothing. They kept their distance as they retreated along the cracked roads and disappeared into the city.

  “I will drink what I need!” the cultivator exclaimed. “There are monsters to slay and fiends to crush! Every journey begins with the smallest of steps, and my quest today begins with this step. Be grateful that I do not demand your life as well, Blended, as a recompense for your existence!”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Blake tugged at the collar of his tattered tunic. A skin-tight gorget of black scales ran up the side of his neck. It was part of his body now. Black horns poked out from the top of his head, and his ears were pointed, permanently marking him as a Blended—someone unfortunate enough to be on a merge border during the Integration. He could try to pull his long hair over them, but it wouldn’t hide much, so he just left it tied up behind his head in a proper Dynasty-style ponytail.

  The cultivator cupped his hands and dipped them into Blake’s bucket. His palms were broad, and the water level dropped a few centimetres. He drew his hands out and slurped the water. Half of it spilled on the ground.

  Blake could only watch in horror.

  In theory, the people of Earth could’ve cultivated mana, but they weren’t naturally attuned to it. Mana cultivators were rare as it was, and Earth had received an overall E grade for mana potential. Blake had only reached the second stage of Mana Condensation—well below the strength of this cultivator. Barely different from a normal human, and not strong enough to warrant a rank seal of his own.

  Accept it. Accept it.

  The cultivator reached for another handful of water. Blake let him take it. He clenched his fists tighter and tighter around the handle of the bucket. He wanted to say something, but he stopped himself. He wanted to talk back, to snap, but he resisted.

  The cultivator sipped up the water, making a purposefully exaggerated slurping noise.

  Accept it.

  The cultivator took a third handful of water and slurped up half of it before letting out a satisfied exhale and throwing the rest on the ground. It soaked into the mud immediately. Wasted.

  Please just accept it, he begged himself.

  A quarter of the bucket was gone. Blake’s dinner budget just disappeared. His stomach gurgled and gnawed.

  He pressed his teeth together and let out a soft growl, then, saying nothing, set off along the cracked asphalt and concrete of an old road. He’d just get back into the city and forget this ever happened.

  “Blended!” the mana cultivator hollered. “I was not done with you!”

  Blake kept walking, pretending he didn’t hear.

  “Disobey again, thrall, and I will take your head!”

  He couldn’t keep pretending. “Apologies,” he muttered under his breath. He stopped. “My ears were still ringing from the slurping.” The words just slipped out. He couldn’t keep it contained forever.

  The cultivator glowered. “What is your name, fiend-Blend?”

  Blake swallowed. “This one is called Bjarke Ekkson Blandi.” It was the name they’d assigned to him—Bjarke being a common name in the Dynasty, and close enough to Blake. Ekkson? It was a family name given to Earthlings with no known fathers. Blandi referred to his race, as he had no clan.

  Blandi. Blended.

  The cultivator scoffed. He marched back to Blake. With each step, his armour clattered, and the battleaxe on his back swayed. Looking Blake in the eyes, he reached into the bucket and drew out another handful of water, then pointedly splashed it on the pavement without even taking a sip.

  “Now you may leave.”

  Blake pressed his lips shut and imagined an invisible pin holding them together. Not another indignant word would get out.

  He trekked along the trail of cracked concrete that had once been a highway. Long shadows fell across the road, projected by the taller skyscrapers of the old city.

  Every step Blake took, his bucket swished, painfully light in his grip. He could’ve tried his luck on the rigs, waited a few more hours, and tried to get back to three-quarters full, but if a full-blooded fiend attacked him, he was as good as dead.

  Slowly, the twisted, vine-covered frames of buildings climbed up around him. Candles and torches illuminated the lower levels of the city. Rusted out war machines crumbled in the streets, and cars still waited where their owners abandoned them—beneath bridges and scattered along the sidewalks. They wouldn’t move again.

  He passed through a gap in the chain-link fence that marked the start of the Blended housing district. The district was on the edge of the city closest to the merge border.

  Conveniently? No. No one would bat an eye if a Blended got gobbled up by a monster.

  As soon as he set foot within the Blended district, the world seemed to come back to life. Tattered fabric awnings hung over market stalls, and feral cats perched in the corners. Holes yawned in the sides of buildings like gouged out eyes, but torchlight and candlelight shone within them, illuminating cooking pots and steaming griddles. Savoury scents poured into the street—scavenged meat and foreign spices brought by the cultivators. Some smelled like cinnamon, and others like dirt.

  His stomach growled. He shut his eyes. Not today. Paying rent was more important than food.

  He kept walking, head down, pushing past other Blended and navigating through the district. The Blended were all still humanoid. Two arms, two legs, and a head—and a human mind still intact. Some had reptilian spines along the backs of their heads, some had talons on their hands or feathers for hair. They’d blended with all sorts of fantastical creatures and lesser monsters from around the galaxy.

  Or Blake, who’d been unlucky enough to blend with a fiend. A demonic beast.

  As soon as he stepped into the shadow of the manaship, he turned left to the waterbroker’s stall. The building perched on the corner of a major street and an alleyway, with only a lantern-lit sign to distinguish it. Tarps and boards covered the windows, but the main entrance lay wide open. A guard stood just inside the door, leaning on a crude, rusty imitation of a cultivator’s battleaxe.

  Blake stepped inside. An almost-full tank of freshwater filled most of the room. The other scampermen had already returned and exchanged their water for hacksilver.

  Blake marched into the far corner of the dimly lit room and plunked his bucket down on the counter. “Mr. Julian, sir?” he asked.

  A head popped up from behind the counter, nearly knocking over a shelf of vials. A flabby hand slapped up onto the counter, and an overweight, middle-aged man hauled himself up. The only non-Blended resident in the district.

  “That’s Yulian Matthewson Neif to you,” the man said, running a hand along his half-bald scalp. “I’ll not have you disrespecting my clan.” A pristine, Dynasty-style shirt clung to his shoulders, embroidered around the neck and waist with faux runic script. The waterbaron had given himself over completely to the ways of the offworlders.

  Traitor, Blake thought. He held his lips shut with an utmost display of will, then hoisted his bucket and set it down on the counter.

  “That took you all day?” Julian—Yulian—sneered. He shook his head, making his jowls shake, then reached down into a drawer and dipped a shot glass-sized cup into a bin of hacksilver chunks. “Half pay.”

  “Come on, Julian, I—”

  “Address me with respect, fiend-Blend.”

  Blake scowled. “This one has at least two-thirds of a bucket.”

  “False. It is known that Yulian is a merciful and just broker, and you will take what hacksilber you are given.” Julian pronounced ‘hacksilver’ with the true Dynasty intonation—a B instead of a V.

  Blake snatched up the cup of silver chunks and dumped it in the pocket of his pants. The longer he left it on the counter, the higher the chance Julian would steal it back. He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, then exhaled and shook his head.

  With his bucket in-hand, he slunk back to the center of the room and poured the water into a funnel at the top of the storage tank, then marched back outside with an empty bucket in-hand. Instead of stepping back into the main street, he turned down the alley. A pair of Blended raccoons with crystalline fur scampered out of the way.

  He stared up, past the criss-crossing clotheslines and old power wires, at the manaship. Now, it was an enormous, rigid shadow in the twilight sky.

  There was only one law now: the powerful could do whatever they wanted. To stop them, you had to be more powerful.

  “Do you still accept it?” he whispered to himself.

  Perseverance was in his blood.

  I accept their existence. Not their rule.

  There had to be a way to even the odds. Most of the people of Earth would be trapped at Mana Condensation their whole lives, but mana attunement could be taught, even without natural talent. There were techniques to harvest large amounts of it. The Dynasty’s fancy schools had a monopoly on that knowledge, sure, and they’d never teach it to someone like him, but it meant there was a way.

  Every journey begins with the smallest of steps.

  He threw a punch out into the empty air, letting the air rush around his hand, imagining striking back at the cultivator who stole his water.

  Today was the weakest he’d ever be. That was a promise.